


Infinity times Infinity

by majimakcheoreom



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-05-28 13:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majimakcheoreom/pseuds/majimakcheoreom
Summary: "Will I see her again?""I don't think so"orJenlisa AU based on the book called Dark Matter that no one asked for





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfic is based on the novel called "Dark Matter"  
> Title is from the song called "Sun" by Sleeping at Last
> 
> annnnd 
> 
> I'm working on the Summary hahaha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanfic is based on the novel called "Dark Matter", as in, the words are from the book. I just changed the point of view, characters, removed some parts, edited some to fit the narrative. So please don't sue me. I don't take credit for all of it.  

Jennie always loved Monday nights especially now that it's the 23rd day of the month: their day.

It became her and her wife's tradition - lover's monday night.

Her wife, Lisa, is typing furiously at her laptop. She's almost 33 and she's so tall now that Jennie lost the hope of having the same height as her.

"Busy?" Jennie asks as she sets her things on the table.

Lisa was shocked to hear her voice, probably too engrossed at her work. "Due tomor- you know what," then Lisa closed her laptop, "welcome home love" she says as she stood up and walk towards Jennie

"Get back to it Lisa"

"Noooo"

Jennie rolled her eyes and walked to their bedroom, completely ignoring Lisa's advances for a kiss. Little did she know what would happen that night.

The end of everything she knows, everything she built. No one tells Jennie it's all about to be taken away. There's no warning or any indication that she's standing on a thin ice.

"We should start the pasta" Lisa spoke from the doorway watching Jennie change to her comfy clothes.

Dinners at restaurant got overrated especially when their savings limit things.

"You mean, I cook and you watch" Jennie deadpanned.

Lisa shrugs, years passed and she's still a mess at cooking. "How about takeouts for tonight? I could buy that special gamjatang that you like" Jennie offers (she'll regret it).

"I like yours better"

"Liar" Jennie teased, she wished she listened to Lisa that night. She wished she stayed in their house.

"I saw Bambam today"

"He visited?" Jennie asks.

"What? no!" she laughs at the absurdity, "On the TV, he just had a comeback"

"Good for him I guess."

"Hmmm..." Lisa lets the topic die, but she knows where it was headed. 15 years ago, before they met, Lisa was a trainee to become an idol like Bambam. Then she met Jennie. Long story short, she quit. Lisa's contract were too strict and they found out about their secret relationship.

Now she teaches dance lessons to some workshop and is now a blogger who gives tips about dance, workouts and diet.

"It's not that I'm not happy for him. I mean, he's brilliant, he deserves it and all." Lisa says, trying to hide the 'what ifs' in the air.

Jennie says, "If it makes you feel any better, Jisoo and Rosé just won a Pavia Prize."

"What's that?"

"I don't know actually" Jennie lies. Actually, it is a multidisciplinary award given for achievements in the life and physical sciences. Jisoo and Rosé  won for their different work in neuroscience and medicine.

"Is it a big deal?"

"Some kind of award for being good at research I guess?" Lisa let it slide.

"So what you're saying is, we both have good reason to eat a lot tonight." Lisa says then Jennie gave her a kiss.

"You could've won that prize," Lisa says.

"You could've been performing on that stage tonight"

"But we did this." Lisa gestures at the high-ceilinged expanse of their house. "And we did that," Lisa says, pointing to the wedding ring on Jennie's left hand.

Lisa stepped closer to Jennie and grabbed her hand. "You could have won the Nobel prize because you're mind is so beautiful"

Jennie laughs. "That's possibly an exaggeration."

"Don't sell yourself short. You're a genius."

"You're a flirt" Jennie says "And a little hungry."

"It's true, and you know it. Science is less advanced because you love me."

Jennie shook her head. "I love you, no need to sweep me off my feet" she puts some part of hair strands behind Lisa's ear. "I'm forever yours Lisa"

Lisa only smiles. "You know, you said something to me before that pure research is life consuming-" she stops and Jennie noticed how emotion overtakes her wife, "-you said that you would rather have memories of me on your deathbed than of a cold and lifeless lab."

They looked at each other before Jennie leaned in and kisses Lisa softly. The moment passes when they heard Lisa's stomach.

"I should buy our dinner now" Jennie says.

"Let me come with you" Lisa offers.

Jennie shook her head (she'll regret it) "Finish your work, we'll celebrate about it when I come back"

Lisa just laughs, says, "I'll be waiting"

"Which means I should be back here in..."

"Thirty minutes"

"What would I be without you?" Jennie teases. Lisa kisses her in return.

"Let's not even think about it."

Jennie grab her keys and wallet from the table and move into the living room, her gaze meeting the oil painting of her and Lisa on their wedding dresses. She melts.

As Jennie reach the front door, Lisa shouts, "Return bearing gamjatang AND ice cream!"

Jennie just chuckled.

She didn't look back.

She didn't say goodbye.

And this moment slips past unnoticed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Jennie loves her life, bearing the gamjatang and ice cream that her wife asked, she couldn't be any happier. It will be good to be home again.

She's thinking of playing their wedding song when they finished eating dinner and then they'll slow dance on the middle of the living room.

She hoped Lisa made a progress on her blog so Jennie can have all of her for the rest of the night.

Jennie pass through the alleyway. She always walk that way, it's shorter and as far as she knows, safer. No one had any incidents on that path. Except tonight.

At first she heard something so she glance back, then there's shadow rushing towards her, the distance closing faster before Jennie can even process what's happening.

The first thing Jennie sees is a barrel of a gun, four inches from the end of her nose. The low, raspy voice behind a hospital mask says, "Turn around."

Jennie is too stunned to move until 'he' pushes the gun into her face. She turn around.

"I'm not here for your body or money. Start walking." Jennie follows the order.

"Faster." She walks faster.

"What do you want?" Jennie asks.

"Keep your mouth shut."

At the end of the alleyway is a parked black SUV.

"Oh please no-"

"Or you can bleed to death right here on the sidewalk." The voice says and Jennie remembered how Lisa said she'll be waiting for her. Her heart beats erratically.

"Bring your stuff with you" The voice orders and watched Jennie climbs to the driver seat. The person sat on the passenger seat then tossed her the keys. "Start the car."

It's so quiet on the whole street and Jennie wonders if it's always isolated like this.

"What are you waiting for?"

Jennie starts the engine. "Turn on the navigation then click on 'previous destinations.' "

Jennie used to own a car until she sell it off to be able to pay for their house. She wonders how her captor can trust her on driving until she saw three locations appear on the built-in GPS appear.

There are home address, her university where she used to teach and a unfamiliar location.

"You've been following me?" Jennie asks.

"Choose the third one" Jennie's captor then said, "Buckle your seat belt." Jennie follows and 'he' does the same.

"Jennie, just so we're clear, if you do anything other than follow the directions, I'm going to shoot you. Do you understand?"

Jennie is shocked at the mention of her name but she answered a "Yes" nonetheless.

With panic and fear, Jennie's mind races, figure out what's happening.

Her address is in the GPS so this wasn't a random encounter. 'He' has been following her. Maybe 'he' knew her and something Jennie did has resulted in her current state.

But which? She's not rich. She isn't worth anything, never been arrested, never committed a crime, cheated with other people. Maybe she curse someone but Jennie haven't wronged anyone in the meaningful sense of the word. In a manner that resulted her driving to unknown place with a gun pointed at her.

Jennie is an atomic physicist and professor at a small college. She never disrespected, harassed, embarrassed any of her students or co workers.

Jennie is just an average person.

"Did I do something to you in the past? Or someone you work for? I just don't understand what you could possibly want from-"

"Shhhhhh."

For the first time, Jennie realize there's something familiar in the voice. she can't pinpoint when or where, but she's sure they met.

Jennie felt a vibration of her phone receiving a text message. Then another and another. She realized her captor didn't touch her except if touching means pushing you by the use of gun. Her captor didn't even asked for her phone or wallet.

She look at the time: 9:10 p.m.

Jennie left her house for about one and a half hour. It's Lisa for sure. Jennie's late and she's never late.

When a stoplight turns red, Jennie tried to rest her left hand on her left pocket, pulling out her phone.

There is three missed calls from "Love" and five texts:

 

**LOVE**  
Not to be OA or something but I'm dying of starvation

 

**LOVE**  
Comeback pleaseee

 

**LOVE**

Am hungryyyy

 

**LOVE**  
Loveee

 

**LOVE**  
Heyyy

  
Jennie was about to call Lisa when her captor asked, "What are you doing Jennie?"

'He' grabbed her phone and looked at it for some time before typing Jennie's passcode at first try and succeeding in it. Jennie couldn't help but get angry because her abductor seems to know her _so_ well.

"Is this Lisa or do you have other woman in your life?"

Filled with rage because her captor knows Lisa, Jennie couldn't help but grips the steering wheel tighter. "Go to hell"

Jennie's phone vibrates again and her captor chuckles, "Wow" Jennie noticed the change in the voice... it's actually feminine? "You're in trouble-" Her captor stopped as if surprised, " _love_ " she quotes.

Jennie wonders how a woman can do this to her. She made a mental list of the girls she met and none of them seems to be as crazy as the one sitting beside her.

"Who are you?" She doesn't answer.

They soon arrived their destination: an abandoned warehouse.

"What is this place?" Jennie asks. Her captor asked her to get inside. It becomes deathly silent when the door closed.

"What is this place?" Jennie asks again.

"What are your Tuesday plans?"

"Excuse me?"

Jennie watched as her captor pointed the gun closely to her. "Tomorrow," he says. "Your plans for tomorrow?"

Tomorrow. It feels like a foreign concept for Jennie now. "I'm...giving a test to my PHYS 3316 class."

"What else?"

"That's it."

"What do you plan for today's evening?"

Jennie clenched her teeth but chose not to test her abductor. "Eating dinner with my wife"

"Your wife" her captor says. Jennie didn't know what to say.

Seconds later, her captor spoke again. "Take off all your clothes." Jennie took a step back. She felt like crying.

"If you wanted to try something, you should've done it while you had control of the car. From this moment forward, you're mine. Now, take off your clothes, and if I have to tell you again, I'm going to make you bleed. A lot."

Jennie unzips her black hoodie and shrug her arms out of the sleeves. Jennie stopped.

"Take off everything."

Jennie slips it off one by one until every last piece of clothing is in front of her captor. She feels exposed and vulnerable.

What if she/he tries to rape Jennie? Is that what this is all about?

Just before Jennie can say something, her captor took off her cap, revealing herself. Scratch that, Jennie looks at someone in front of her, who look exactly like her, hold a gun pointing at her.

She threw the cap towards Jennie then took off her clothes but never straying the end of the barrel of the gun towards Jennie.

"Who are you?"

"I'm you" The other Jennie says then she clicked the gun.

Jennie expected blood rushing out from her body but all she saw is an bullet that oddly look like an injection. "WHAT DID YOU GIVE ME?"

"I didn't come here to kill you but there was no other way to bring you here."

Jennie felt like she's drunk. "Just let it take you," the other Jennie says.

But Jennie, the one Lisa married, fights it. She kept thinking about her wife's smile, her laugh, everything.

Her captor spoke, almost like a confession, "It's been a long road. I can't quite believe I'm sitting here actually looking at you. Talking to you. I know you don't understand, but there's so much I want to ask: like what it's like to be you."

Jennie looked at the other her. She's now sitting on the floor, trying to regain her strength.

"How do you feel about your place in the world, Jennie?"

"Are you happy in your life?"

In the shadow of that moment, Jennie's life is achingly beautiful. "Always." Her words are beginning to sound slurred.

"Liar, you killed your ambition didn't you?"

"It died of natural causes. Of neglect." Jennie says like somehow, all the rational thing to do was to answer questions.

She kept thinking about Lisa but the substance in her system overtakes her.

"And do you know exactly how that happened?"

"Life"

The other her snickers. "Lisa happened." She says as a matter of fact.

"You had something big in the works, you were trying to create the quantum superposition of an object that was visible to the human eye but you chose her, you chose Lisa and abandoned your research to have a stable income as a teacher." The other Jennie stated.

It's true, all of it. Jennie's research were not supported by sponsors, it was just a project she was trying to finish to win some award and gain recognition, but when she met Lisa, all of that seems to not matter. All Jennie that ever wanted then was to live a life with her, her research might have stopped but her passion for physics didn't. It is a win win for Jennie. Especially since she have Lisa.

"Do you regret your decision to stay with Lisa and make a life with her?"

Jennie answered fast "No."

"Never?"

"Never."

And then Jennie's lying on the floor, her face against the cold concrete, and the drug is whisking her away.

"Will I see her again?" Jennie asks.

The other Jennie looked at her. "I don't think so."

Jennie want to ask her for the millionth time what she wants from Jennie but her eyes keep closing.


	3. Chapter 3

Jennie is aware of something gripping her ankles. Her consciousness were brought back but she chose to keep her eyes closed.

"How'd she get out of the box?"

Someone responds: "No idea."

Jennie opened her eyes, but all she sees is blurred motions and light.

Someone, Jennie bets it's the one who's in charge, barks, "Let's get her the hell out of here."

Jennie try to speak, but the words fall out of her mouth, distorted and formless.

A woman came to her and Jennie knows her face all too well. "Dr. Kim? Can you hear me?-" Jennie didn't hear that address since she quit her research. "-We're going to lift you onto a stretcher now." Jisoo says.

Jennie's eyes roamed around and noticed a man looking intently at her. He's staring through the face shield of an aluminized hazmat suit with a self-contained breathing apparatus.

Jisoo came into her view, "One, two, three." she says.

They hoist Jennie onto a stretcher and lock padded restraints around her ankles and wrists. Jennie, too tired to move, didn't fought back. Instead, she gave Jisoo a look.

"Only for your protection, Dr. Kim." Jisoo says with formality. That's the time Jennie finally wonders why Jisoo is there with her. Guessing by the surroundings, she's not in a hospital or any familiar buildings she's been into. Actually, it all looks so foreign for her.

As Jennie watch the lights on the ceiling scroll past, she catch a flash of memory-a needle puncturing her body. She was injected with something (maybe some drugs?).

"Initial condition assessment?" says the man who's been staring at Jennie intently since she woke up on the cold floor.

Jisoo reaches down with a gloved hand and wakes some kind of monitoring device that's been attached around Jennie's left arm. "Pulse rate: one-fifteen. BP: one-forty over ninety-two. Temp: ninety-eight point-nine. Oh-two sat: ninety-five percent. Gamma: point-eight seven. ETA thirty seconds. Out."

A buzzing sound startles Jennie. They move through a vaultlike doors, like a military grade doors.

Jesus Christ.

 _Stay calm. This isn't real._ Jennie thought.

The wheels squeak faster, more urgently. Before Jennie knew it, they're already in a corridor lined with plastic, her eyes squinting against the onslaught of light from fluorescent bulbs shining overhead.

They wheel her into an operating room. The man from before smiles down at Jennie through his face shield and says, as if he knows her closely, "Welcome back, Jennie. Congratulations. You did it."

_Back?_

Jennie looked at him and realize that his eyes doesn't remind her of anyone she have ever met.

"Are you experiencing any pain?" he asks.

Jennie shakes her head.

"Do you know how you got the cuts and bruises on your face?"

Shake. Jennie chose to lie. Who would believe her that a doppelganger did those things to her?

"Do you know who you are?"

She nods.

"Do you know where you are?"

Shake.

"Do you recognize me?"

Shake.

"I'm Yang Hyun-suk, chief executive and medical officer. We're colleagues and friends." He looked at her, as if evaluating if any of his words registered in Jennie's confused mind.

"Someone need to get you out of these clothes." He says and then Jisoo is beside her. The man left the room and then Jisoo started removing the monitoring device and goes to work on her jeans and boxer shorts, tossing them into a metal tray.

As she cuts off Jennie's shirt, Jennie gaze up at the lights burning down on her, trying her best not to panic. But she's naked and strapped to a stretcher.

No, she reminds herself: I'm hallucinating that I'm naked and strapped to a stretcher. Because none of this is real.

When Jisoo signals, a group of three medical professionals came to Jennie and started testing her with weird devices that she doesn't know.

Her thoughts fire at the speed of light: _Is there even a drug capable of this? Creating hallucinations and pain at this level of horrifying clarity? This is too intense, too real. What if this is actually happening? Is this some CIA shit? Am I in a black clinic in the throes of human experimentation? Have I been kidnapped by these people?_

As they kept testing, Jennie found herself sleeping again. Through her blurry vision, she saw Jisoo panicking and shouting at the others.

Maybe she's finally waking up from this horrendous dream.

___________________________________

 

She woke up.

But she's still stuck in the dream that is most likely not a dream after all.

Yang-something observes Jennie. "Better?" he asks.

Jennie just looked at him.

"I'll leave you to get dressed and come back when your lab work is in. It won't take long."

She finally find her voice: "I don't understand what's happening. I don't know where I-"

"The disorientation will pass. I'll be closely monitoring. We'll get you through this." Yang something looked at her. "It's really good to see you again, partner. Feels like Mission Control when Apollo Thirteen returned. We're all real proud of you." The door closed after him.

Partner? Jennie wonders.

Apollo Thirteen? That earned a chuckle from Jennie.

She rises from the bed and walk over to the dresser, unstable on her feet. She's so weak that it takes her several minutes to get the clothes on-good slacks, a linen shirt, no belt. From just above the door, a surveillance camera watches her.

She return to the bed, sit alone in this sterile, silent room, trying to conjure her last concrete memory. The mere attempt feels like drowning ten feet from shore. There are pieces of memory lying on the beach, and she can see her, she can almost touch her, but Jennie's lungs are filling up with water. Jennie can't keep my head above the surface.

The more Jennie strain to assemble the pieces, the more energy she expends, the more she flails, the more she panics.

All Jennie have as she sit in the white, padded room is-

Books.

Smell of isopropyl alcohol.

Plates.

Wait.

My home. Jennie thought.

It was lover's night. 23rd of the month. She thought of Lisa's smile, of her voice and her hug. Jennie felt the sweetness of Lisa's kiss. See the glassiness in her eyes. What a safe and perfect place.

But she didn't stay.

For some stupid reason, she left. _Why?_

Jennie was trying her best for some clarity, however, on the brink of recollection, the door to the patient room (her room) opens.

Yang-something, now traded the hazmat suit for a classic lab coat, stands in the door frame with a grin on his face. It was evident, Jennie notices, that he's grin was like he's barely keeping himself for anticipation. Jennie also realizes how the time aged him and now she wonders how this man in front of her dares to call her _partner_.

"Good news," he says. "All clear."

"Clear of what?"

"Radiation exposure, bio-hazards, infectious disease. We'll have complete results from your blood scan in the morning, but you're cleared from quarantine." he says walking closely to Jennie.

"Oh. I have this for you." He hands her a Ziploc bag containing a set of keys and a money clip.

 _Dr. Jennie Kim_ has been written in black Sharpie on a piece of masking tape affixed to the plastic.

"Shall we? They're all waiting for you." 


	4. Chapter 4

Back in the corridor, a half-dozen workers are busy walking and talking and murmuring some theories to themselves. Jennie even heard someone talking to himself as he tries to compute for one millennium prize problem.

When they saw her, they all begin to applaud.

A woman shouts, "Welcome back Dr. Kim!"

Jennie shyly passed the crowd. Confusion taking over because people kept calling her _Dr. Kim_. It's been years since someone called her that, even Lisa stopped calling her that because she knows how much Jennie missed her research. Also, after their marriage and with years of teaching, Jennie got used to being addressed as _Professor Manoban_.

Yang-something leads Jennie into a stairwell, and they ascend, the metal steps clanging under their footsteps.

"You all right on these?" he asks.

"Yeah. Where are we going?"

"Debrief."

"But I don't even—"

"It's better if you just hold your thoughts for the interview. You know— protocol and shit."

Two flights up, he opens a glass door that's an inch thick. They enter another corridor with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side.

Jennie drift toward the windows to get a better look, but Yang-something guides her instead through the second door on the left, ushering Jennie into a dimly lit room, where Jisoo, still wearing her lab coat, is standing behind a table as if awaiting her arrival.

"Dr. Kim" she says.

"Hi."

Her eyes captures Jennie's stare for a moment as Yang-something straps the monitoring device around Jennie's left arm.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asks. "I'd feel better keeping tabs on your vitals a little while longer. We'll be out of the woods soon."

Yang-something gently presses his hand onto Jennie's back and urges her the rest of the way inside.

Jennie hears the door close behind her.

Jisoo looks older than before and that's a lot of saying because Jennie saw her a few weeks ago. Short, black hair just skirting striking eyes that somehow manage to be concurrently kind and penetrating.

The lighting is soft and unthreatening, like a movie theater moments before the film begins.

There are two straight-backed wooden chairs, and on the small table a laptop, a pitcher of water, two drinking glasses, a steel carafe, and a steaming mug that fills the room with the aroma of good coffee.

The walls and ceiling are made of smoked glass.

"Jennie, if you have a seat, we can get started."

Jennie hesitates for five long seconds, debating just walking out, but something tells her that would be a bad, possibly catastrophic, idea. So she sits in the chair, reach for the pitcher, and pour herself a glass of water.

Jisoo says, "If you're hungry, we can have food brought in."

"No thanks."

Finally taking her seat across from me, she pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and types something on the laptop.

"It is—" She checks her wristwatch. "—12:07 a.m., October 23, I'm Kim Jisoo, employee ID number one-nine-nine-five, and I'm joined tonight by..." She gestures to the other girl.

"Um, Jennie Kim Mano-" she was cut off by Jisoo.

"Thank you, Dr. Kim."

"Just call me Professor Manoban please" Jennie pleads, holding onto Lisa's memory. Jisoo frowns at her statement.

"By way of background, and for the record, at approximately 10:59 p.m. on October 23, Technician Kyle Hanagami, during a routine interior locality audit, discovered Dr. Kim lying unconscious on the floor near the Box. The extraction team was activated, and Dr. Kim was removed to quarantine at 11:24 p.m. Following decontamination and primary lab work clearance by Dr. Yang Hyun-suk, Dr. Kim was escorted to the conference theater on sublevel two, where our first debriefing interview begins."

Jisoo looks up at me, smiling now. "Jennie, we are thrilled to have you back. The hour is late, but most of the team rushed in from the city for this. As you might have guessed, they're all looking on behind the glass."

Applause breaks out all around us, accompanied by cheers and several people shouting Jennie's name.

The lights come up just enough for her to see through the walls. Fifteen or twenty people are on their feet, most smiling, a few even wiping their eyes as if Jennie returned from some heroic mission.

Jennie also notices that two of them are armed, the butts of their pistols gleaming under the lights. These men aren't smiling or clapping.

Jisoo scoots her chair back and, rising, begins to clap along with the others. She seems to be deeply moved as well.

And all Jennie can think is, What the hell has happened to her?

When the applause subsides, Jisoo settles back into her seat. She says, "Pardon our enthusiasm, but so far, you're the only one to return."

Jennie have no idea what she's talking about. Part of her wants to say just that, but the other part of her suspects that maybe she shouldn't.

The lights dim back down.

Jennie clutches the glass of water in her hands like a lifeline.

"Do you know how long you've been gone?" Jisoo asks.

_Gone where?_

"No."

"Fourteen months."

What the fuck.

"Is that a shock to you, Jennie?"

"You could say that."

"Well, pins and needles and bated breath and asses on the edges of our seats. We've been waiting for over a year to ask these questions: What did you see? Where did you go? How did you get back? Tell us everything, and please start from the beginning."

Jennie takes a sip of water, clinging to her last solid memory like a crumbling handhold on a cliff face—leaving my house on lover's night with Lisa.

And then...

She walked down the sidewalk through a cool, autumn night but to where?

 _Where was I going?_ Jennie thought.

"Just take your time, Jennie. We're in no rush."

_To Lisa._

As if on cue, Jennie felt the air being sucked out of her lungs. Lisa, her wife, she left her. Then Jennie wonders: _Is this actually happening?_

She raises the glass of water. It looks perfectly real, right down to the way it sweats and the cold wetness of it on Jennie's fingertips.

She look into Jisoo's eyes.

She examine the walls. They're not melting.

If this is some drug-induced trip, it's like none I've ever heard of. No visual or auditory distortions. No euphoria. It's not that this place doesn't feel real.

I just shouldn't be here. It's somehow my presence that's the lie. Jennie told herself.

She's not even exactly sure what that means, only that she feel it in my core.

No, this is not a hallucination. This is something else entirely.

"Let's try a different approach,"

Jisoo asks. "What's the last thing you remember before waking up on the floor?"

"I was walking on an alleyway."

"What were you doing there?"

"Going home." Jennie didn't dare to mention her wife's name.

"And where was this alleyway?" she asks.

"Somewhere in Seoul"

"So you were still in Seoul."

"Yeah."

"Okay, can you describe...?"

Jisoo's voice drops off into silence.

Jennie suddenly sees the alleyway.

It's dark.

Silence taking all over the place.

Too quiet.

Someone is coming.

Someone who wants to hurt her.

Jennie's heart begins to race.

Her hands sweat.

She sets the glass down on the table. "Jennie, Dr. Hyun-suk is telling me your vitals are becoming elevated." Her voice is back but still an ocean away.

_Is this a trick?_

_Am i being messed with?_

Jennie didn't ask Jisoo that question. She didn't dare to say those words.

Be the woman they think you are.

These people are cool, calm, and two of them are armed. Whatever they need to hear Jennie say, say it. Because if they realize you aren't the person they think Jennie are, then what?

Maybe she never leave this place.

And oh god, Lisa.

Jennie's head is beginning to throb. Reaching up, she touches the back of her skull and graze a knot that's so tender it causes her to wince.

"Jennie?"

Her thoughts continues:

_Was I hurt?_

_Did someone attack me?_

_What if I was brought here?_

_What if these people, despite how nice they seem, are in league with the person who did this to me?_

"Jennie."

_I'm naked and helpless._

"Jennie.."

Then it clicked.

Her name.

Her face.

A doppelganger.

She's not the woman they think she is.

What happens when they figure that out?

"Dr. Hyun-suk, could you come down, please?"

Nothing good.

Jennie felt suffocating. She needs to get away from these people. She needs to think.

"Jisoo, this is embarrassing," Jennie says, "I'm just so exhausted, and to be honest, decontamination was no fun."

"Do you want to break for a minute?"

"Would that be okay? I just need a moment to clear my head." Jennie points at the laptop. "I also want to sound mildly intelligent for this thing."

"Of course." Jisoo types something before announcing, "We're off the record now."

Jennie gets up.

"I can show you to a private room—"

"Not necessary."

Jennie opened the door and step out into the corridor.

Yang-something is waiting for her.

"Jennie, I'd like you to lie down. Your vitals are-."

Jennie didn't let him finish and instead rips the device off her arm and handed it to him.

"Appreciate the concern, but what I really need is a bathroom stall."

"Oh. Of course. I'll take you."

They head down the corridor.

He leads Jennie back into the stairwell, which at the moment is empty. Jennie grasps the railing and lean out over the core of open space. Two flights to the bottom, two to the top.

What did Jisoo say at the start of the interview? They're on sublevel two? Does that mean the building's underground?

"Jennie? You coming?"

She follows Yang-something, climbing, fighting through the weakness in her legs, the pain in her head.

At the top of the stairwell, a sign beside a reinforced-steel door reads

GROUND. Yang swipes a keycard, punches in a code, and holds the door open.

The words VELOCITY LABORATORIES are affixed in block letters across the wall straight ahead.

Left: a bank of elevators.

Right: a security checkpoint, with a hard-looking guard standing between the metal detector and the turnstile, the exit just beyond.

It seems like the security is outward facing, focused more on preventing people from getting in than getting out.

Jennie was led into an office. She enters with suspicions.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable in your private bathroom in your own office." Yang points toward a door in the far corner.

"I'll be right here," he says, sitting down on the couch and pulling a phone out of his pocket.

"Shout if you need anything."

Jennie enters the bathroom and took a seat on the toilet.

Her chest feels so tight she can barely breathe.

They've been waiting for her to return for fourteen months. There's no way they're letting Jennie walk out of this building.

Not tonight.

Maybe not for a long time considering she's not the Dr. Kim they think they're talking to.

Unless this is all some elaborate test or game. Some kind of sick variety show.

Yang's voice pushes through the door:

"Everything all right in there?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know what you saw inside that thing, but I want you to know I'm here for you, partner. If you're freaking out, you got to tell me, so I can help you."

Jennie stands up.

He continues, "I was watching you from the theater, and I have to say, you looked out of it."

Jennie contemplates whether if she could make a dash through security, but she pictures that massive guard standing by the metal detector and concludes that it won't be effective.

"Physically, I think you're going to be fine, but I worry about your psychological state."

Jennie have to step onto the lip of the porcelain urinal to reach the window.

The glass appears to be locked shut by means of a lever on each side.

It's three feet by three feet, and Jennie's somehow sure that she can fit through.

Something's voice echoes through the bathroom, and as Jennie creeps back toward the sink, his words become clear again.

"...worst thing you can do is try to manage this on your own. Let's be honest. You're the kind of girl who thinks she's strong enough to push through anything."

Jennie approaches the door.

There's a deadbolt.

With trembling fingers, she slowly turns the lock cylinder.

"But no matter what you're feeling," his voice close now, inches away, "I want you to share it with me, and if we need to push this debriefing until tomorrow or the next—"

He goes silent as the bolt shoots home with a soft click.

For a moment, nothing happens.

Jennie takes a careful step back.

The door shooks.

"Jennie. Jennie!" And then: "I need a security team to Dr. Jennie Kim's office right now. She has locked herself inside the bathroom."

The door shudders as something crashes into it, but the lock holds.

Jennie rushes for the window, climb up onto the urinal, and flip the levers on either side of the glass.

Ya-Something is shouting at someone, and although Jennie can't make out the words, she thinks she hears approaching footsteps.

The window opens.

Night air funnels in.

Before the security even destroyed the door, Jennie is already running towards the exit.

She keeps on running and running and running.

Her mind focused on one thing:

Lisa.


	5. Chapter 5

****A cab with the Off-Duty light illuminated.

Jennie step out into the intersection and stand under the traffic light, waving her arms. The taxi slows down on approach and tries to swerve around her, but Jennie sidesteps, keeping its bumper on a collision course, forcing it to stop.

The driver lowers his window, angry.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I need a ride."

The cabbie, with his thick-lensed glasses, scoffs, "It's two in the morning. I'm done tonight. No more work."

"Please."

"Can you read? Look at the sign." He slaps the top of his car.

"I need to get home."

The window begins to rise.

Jennie immediately reaches into her pocket and pull out the plastic bag containing her personal belongings. She ripped it open (which also rips the name _Dr. Jennie Kim_ that was written on it) and then Jennie shows him the money clip.

"I can pay you more than—"

"Get out of the road."

"I'll double your rate."

The window stops six inches from the top of the door.

"Cash."

"Cash."

Jennie thumb quickly through the wad of bills. She can probably can cover the double rate.

"Get in if we go!" he yells.

Jennie finished counting her funds—$332 and three expired credit cards. She climbs into the backseat and tells the driver where to go.

"That's twenty-five miles!"

"And I'm paying you double." He glares at Jennie in the rear view mirror.

"Where's the money?" 

Jennie peels off $100 and handed it into the front seat. "The rest when we get there." He snatches the money and accelerates through the intersection.

Jennie examines the money clip. Under the cash and the credit cards, there's an Seoul driver's license with a ID picture of Jennie, however, Jennie swore that she have never seen it. There's also an ID for a gym she never been to, and a health insurance card from a carrier she never used.

The cabbie sneaks glances at her in the rear view mirror.

"You have bad night," he says.

"Looks that way, huh?"

"I thought you are drunk, but no. Your clothes are torn. Face bloody."

Jennie tries to think as if she were in his shoes; looking at a woman, standing in the middle of an intersection at two in the morning, looking homeless and deranged.

"You're in trouble," he says.

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"I'm not exactly sure."

"I take you to hospital."

"No. I want to go home."

  
___________________________________

 

With each passing mile, Jennie starts to feel some semblance of her sanity returning, if for no other reason than she'll be home soon.

Lisa will help her make sense of whatever's happening.

The cab parks across from Jennie's house and she pays him the rest of his fare.

She hurries across the street and up the steps, pulling keys out of her pocket that aren't her keys. As Jennie tries to find the one that fits the lock, she realize the door that she's opening is not _her_ door. Well, it _is_  her door. It's her street. Her number on the mailbox. But the handle isn't right, the wood is too elegant, and the hinges are some iron, gothic-looking things more suited to a medieval tavern.

Jennie turns the deadbolt.

The door swings inward.

Something is wrong.

Very, very wrong.

She step across the threshold, into the dining room.

It doesn't smell like her house. Doesn't smell like anything but the faintest odor of dust. Like no one has lived here in quite some time. The lights are out, and not just some of them. Every last one.

Jennie closes the door and fumble in the darkness until her hand grazes a dimmer switch. A chandelier made of antlers warms the room above a minimalist glass table that isn't hers and chairs that aren't hers.

she calls out, "Hello?"

The house is so quiet.

Revoltingly quiet.

In _**her**_ home on the mantel behind the dining-room table there's a large, candid photograph of her and Lisa sitting side by side. 

In the house that Jennie's currently in, there's a deep-contrast black-and-white photograph of the same canyon. More artfully done, but with no one in it.

Jennie moves on to the kitchen, and at her entrance, a sensor triggers the recessed lighting.

It's gorgeous.

Expensive.

And lifeless.

In _**her**_  kitchen, there's a bunch of notes by Lisa held by magnets to their white LG refrigerator. It makes Jennie smile every time she sees it. 

In the kitchen that Jennie's currently in, there's not even a blemish on the steel facade of the LG refrigerator.

"Lisa!"

Jennie tries again, "Lisa!"

She heads up the stairs to the second floor.

The hallway is dark and the light switch isn't where it should be, but it doesn't matter. 

She steps into the next room on the left.

Their bedroom.

Except it's not. There's none of their polaroid pictures. No messy bed, no framed picture of them kissing, no desk with Jennie's to-be-checked papers across it, no lamps, no fluffy pillows, no clothes of them scattered all over the floor.

Instead, just a monitor sitting on an expansive desk that's covered in books and loose paper.

Jennie walks in shock to the center of the room. She can feel her heart beating faster out of panic, then she noticed something:

 

_The Pavia Prize is awarded to_

_JENNIE KIM for outstanding achievement in advancing_ _our knowledge and understanding of the origin,_ _evolution and properties of the universe by placing a macroscopic object into a state of quantum superposition_

 

Jennie sits on the expensive chair that matches the expansive desk.

She's not well. So not well.

Her home should be her haven, a place of safety and comfort, where Jennie's surrounded by familiar things that she and Lisa worked hard to buy. But everything in the current room she's in is not even hers.

Her stomach lurches.

She rushes into the master bath, fling open the toilet seat, and emptied her guts into the pristine bowl. After that, Jennie wanders back into the bedroom.

With no idea on where her mobile phone is, Jennie decides to use the landline instead. 

Even though, Jennie never actually dial Lisa's cell-phone number, it didn't take long for her to remember her wife's number. Lisa, being her usual self, insisted on their 1st year of being together to memorize each other's numbers for emergencies. It seems funny to Jennie before, now, it somehow made sense. 

Four rings.

A male voice answers, deep and groggy.

"Hello?"

"Where's Lisa?"

"I think you misdialed."

Jennie decided to recite Lisa's cell phone number, and he says, "Yeah, that's the number you called, but it's my number."

"How is that possible?"

He hangs up.

She dials her number again, and this time he answers on the first ring with, "It's three in the morning. Don't call me again, asshole."

Jennie's third attempt goes straight to the man's voicemail. She doesn't bother to leave a message.

Rising from the seat, Jennie returns to the bathroom and studies herself in the mirror over the sink.

Her face is bruised, scraped, bloody, and mud-streaked. Eyes are bloodshot, but it's still Jennie. 

A wave of exhaustion hits her like an uppercut. Her knees give out, but she catches herself on the counter top.

And then, down on the first floor—a noise.

A door closing softly?

Jennie straightens.

Alert again.

She hears whispered voices.

The static of a handheld radio.

The hollow creak of someone's footsteps on a hardwood step.

The voices become clearer, echoing between the walls of the stairwell and spilling out the top and down the corridor.

A man's voice—calm, measured. Yang-something—slides out of the stairwell: "Jennie?"

"We're not here to hurt you."

"I know you're feeling confused and disoriented. I wish you'd said something back at the lab. I didn't realize how bad it was for you. I'm sorry I missed that."

Jennie carefully closes the bathroom door behind me and push in the lock.

"We just want to bring you in so you don't hurt yourself or anyone else."

Across from the toilet, Jennie saw what she's looking for: a large shelf built into the wall with a hatch that opens the laundry chute.

"Jennie."

Through the bathroom door, Jennie hears the radio crackling.

"Jennie, please. Talk to me." Out of nowhere, his voice hemorrhages frustration. "We have all given up our lives working toward tonight. Come out here! This is fucking insane!"

Jennie opens the hatch, scramble up onto the shelf.

Yang-something says, "Take the bedroom."

Footsteps patter down the hall.

The fit down the laundry chute looks tight. Maybe too tight.

Jennie hears the bathroom door begin to shake, the doorknob jiggling, and then a woman's voice: "Hey, this one's locked."

Jennie peer down the chute.

Total darkness.

The bathroom door is thick enough that their first attempt to break through only results in a splintering crack. Jennie might not even fit down, but as they crash into the door a second time and it explodes off the hinges and thunders down against the tile, Jennie realized that she have no other options.

They rush into the bathroom, and in the mirror, Jennie catches the fleeting reflection of Yang-something and one of those security consultants from the lab, holding what appears to be a Taser.

Yang and Jennie lock eyes in the glass for a half second, and then the man with the Taser spins, raising his weapon.

Jennie folds her arms into her chest and commit herself to the chute.

She already knows where to head next.

  
___________________________________

 

Severance Hospital is a long trek from Jennie's house, so when she reached it, she limps into the harsh light of the ER at 4:05 a.m.

She hates hospitals; she watched her mother die in one and Lisa spent the two weeks of her life in an ICU due to a car accident. Thank God, she fully recovered.

The waiting room is practically empty. Aside from Jennie, there's a night construction worker clutching his arm in a bloody bandage, and a distressed looking family of three, the father holding a red-faced, wailing baby. The woman at the front desk looks up from her paperwork, surprisingly bright-eyed considering the hour.

Asks through the glass, "How can I help you?"

Jennie haven't thought of what to say, how to even begin to explain what she needs. _Lisa._ She thought.

When she doesn't answer right away, the woman tries again, "Have you been in an accident?"

"No."

"You have cuts all over your face."

"I'm not well," Jennie announced.

"What do you mean?"

"I think I need to talk to someone."

"Are you homeless?"

"No."

"Where's your family?"

"I don't know."

She looks Jennie up and down—a fast, professional appraisal.

"Your name, ma'am?"

"Jennie."

"One moment."

Rising from her chair, she disappears around the corner. Thirty seconds later, there's a buzzing sound as the door beside her station unlocks and opens.

The nurse smiles. "Come on back." 

She leads Jennie to a patient room. "Someone will be right with you." As the door closes after her, Jennie took a seat on the examination table and shuts her eyes against the glare of the lights. She have never been so tired in her life.

The door opens.

A young doctor walks in carrying a clipboard. She's trailed by a different nurse—a bottle blonde in blue scrubs who wears four-in-the-morning exhaustion like a millstone around her neck.

"It's Jennie?" the doctor asks without offering her hand or attempting to fake her way through the graveyard-shift indifference.

Jennie nods. "Last name?", the doctor asked.

Jennie's hesitant to give her full name, but then again, maybe that's just the brain tumor talking, or whatever has gone wrong inside her head.

"Manoban."

"I'm Dr. Irene, attending physician. What brings you into the ER tonight?"

"I think something is wrong with my mind. Like a tumor or something."

"What makes you say that?"

"Things aren't like they should be."

"Okay. Could you elaborate?"

"I...all right, this is going to sound crazy. Just know that I realize that."

She glances up from the clipboard.

"My house isn't my house."

"I'm not following."

"It's just what I said. My house isn't my house. My wife isn't there. Everything's much...nicer. It's all been renovated and—"

"But it's still your address?"

"Right."

"So you're saying the inside is different, but the outside is the same?" She says it like she's speaking to a child.

"Yeah."

"Jennie, how did you get the cuts on your face? The mud on your clothes?"

"People were chasing me."

Jennie knew that she shouldn't have told her that, but she's too tired to filter. She must sound absolutely insane.

Dr. Irene, now looking incredibly interested on her case, raised an eyebrow. "Chasing you."

"Yes."

"Who was chasing you?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know why they were chasing you?"

"Because...it's complicated."

Her appraising, skeptical look is far more subtle and trained than the front desk nurse's. Jennie almost missed it. "Have you taken any drugs or alcohol tonight?" she asks.

"Just water."

"Again, I'm sorry—it's been a very long shift—but what makes you think something is wrong with your mind?"

"Because the last eight hours of my life don't make sense. It all feels real, but it can't possibly be."

"Have you suffered a recent head injury?"

"No. Well. I mean, I think someone hit me in the back of the head-" Jennie touched the back of her head as if on cue, "-It's painful to the touch."

"Who hit you?"

"I'm not sure. I'm not really sure of anything right now."

"Okay. Do you use drugs? Now or in the past?"

"No, I don't use drugs."

The doctor turns to the nurse. "I'm going to have Seulgi draw some blood."

She drops the clipboard on a table and plucks a penlight from the front pocket of her lab coat.

"Mind if I examine you?"

"No."

Dr. Irene moves in until their faces are inches apart, close enough for Jennie to smell the stale coffee on her breath. She shines the light straight into Jennie's right eye. For a moment, there's nothing but a point of brilliance in the center of Jennie's field of vision, which momentarily burns away the rest of the world.

"Jennie, are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself?"

"I'm not suicidal."

The light hits Jennie's left eye.

"Have you had any prior psychiatric hospitalizations?"

"No."

She gently takes Jennie's wrist in her soft, cool hands and then measures Jennie's pulse rate. "What do you do for a living?" she asks.

"I teach at Yonsei University."

"Married?"

"Yes." Jennie instinctively reach down to touch her wedding band but it's gone. _Shit._ She thought.

The nurse begins to roll up the left sleeve of Jennie's shirt. "What's your wife's name?" the doctor asks.

"Lisa."

"You two on good terms?"

"Yes."

"Don't you think she's wondering where you are? I feel like we should call her."

"I tried."

"When?"

"An hour ago, at my house. Someone else answered. It was a wrong number."

"Maybe you misdialed."

"I know my wife's phone number."

The nurse asks, "We okay with needles, Ms. Manoban?"

"Yes."

As she sterilizes the underside of Jennie's arm, she says, "Dr. Irene, look." She touches the needle mark from several hours ago when Jisoo and her co-workers drew her blood.

"When did this happen?" Dr. Irene asks.

"I don't know." Jennie thought it is robably best not to mention the lab or something that she just escaped from.

"You don't remember someone sticking a needle in your arm?"

"No."

Dr. Irene nods to the nurse, and she warns Jennie, "Little pinch coming."

She asks, "Do you have your cell phone with you?"

"I don't know where it is."

She grabs the clipboard. "Give me your wife's name again. And phone number. We'll try to reach her for you." Jennie spells Lisa's name and rattle off her cell number and their home number as her blood rushes into a plastic vial.

"You're going to scan my head?" Jennie asks. "See what's going on?"

"Absolutely."


	6. Chapter 6

They give Jennie a private room on the eighth floor.

Sleep tugs, but the scientist in her brain won't power down. Jennie can't stop thinking. Formulating hypotheses and dismantling them. Struggling to wrap logic around everything that's happened.

In this moment, she have no way of knowing what's real and what isn't. She can't even be sure that she was ever married.

_No._

_Wait._

Jennie raises her left hand and studies her ring finger. The ring is gone, but the proof of its existence lingers as a faint indentation around the base of her ring finger. It was there. It left a mark. That means someone took it.

Jennie touches the indentation, acknowledging both the horror and the comfort of what it represents—the last vestige of her reality.

She wonders— What will happen when this last physical trace of her marriage is gone? When there's no anchor?

As the skies above Seoul inch toward dawn—a hopeless, cloud-ridden purple— Jennie loses herself to sleep.

  
___________________________________  

 

_Lisa's hands are deep in the warm, soapy water when she hears the front door slam shut. She looks up from her laptop, glancing back over her shoulder as footsteps approach. Jennie appears in the doorway, grinning—as her mother would say—like a fool._

_Lisa watches Jennie set the canvas grocery bag on the table and move toward her._ _Her arms slide around her waist._ _Lisa says, half jokingly, "If you think a couple pints of ice cream are going to get you out of this, I don't know what to tell you."_

_Jennie presses up against her and whispers in her ear, "Life's short. Don't be mad. It's a waste of time."_

_"How did thirty minutes turn into almost three hours?"_

_"I feel terrible."_

_Jennie's lips on the back of Lisa's neck put a delicate shiver down her spine. Lisa retorts, "You're not getting out of this."_

_Now Jennie kisses the side of her neck. Sh_ _e interlaces their fingers._

_"We should eat something," she says. "I'll warm up the food you brought."_

_Lisa tries to step past Jennie on her way to the fridge, but Jennie blocks her path._ _"My God, I've missed you." Jennie announced._

_"Did you dri—?"_

_Jennie kisses her out of nowhere, she runs her hands over Lisa's hips and pulls her shirt out of her jeans. Jennie's hands on her skin now, as hot as an oven range._

_Lisa pushes her back._ _"Jennie wha-"  That's when Lisa realized it._ _"Something happened while you were out," she says, with full conviction._

_"Nothing happened, other than I lost track of time."_

_"When I left the restaurant, my mind was elsewhere. I wasn't thinking. I stepped out into traffic and this cab nearly splattered me all over the pavement. Scared the hell out of me. I don't know how to explain it, but ever since that moment—in the restaurant, walking home, standing here in our house—I have felt so alive. Like I see my life with force and clarity for once. All the things I have to be grateful for. You."_

_Lisa feels her anger towards Jennie beginning to melt._

_Jennie starts again, "It's like we get so set in our ways, so entrenched in those grooves, we stop seeing our loved ones for who they are. But tonight, right now, I see you again, like the first time we met, when the sound of your voice and your smell was this new country. I'm rambling now."_

_Lisa goes to Jennie and cups her face in her hands and kisses her._ _Then she takes Jennie's hand and leads her upstairs._

_In their bedroom, Lisa locks the door and opens the top drawer of her dresser, searching for a candle to light, but Jennie has no time for it._

_She pulls Lisa over to the bed and drags her down onto the mattress, and then Jennie's on top of her, kissing her, her hands moving under her clothes, roaming her body._

_Lisa feels wetness on her cheek, her lips._

_Tears._

_Jennie's._

_Holding Jennie's face between her hands, Lisa asks, "Why are you crying?"_

_"I felt like I'd lost you."_

_"You have me, Jennie," Lisa says. "I'm right here, love. You have me."_

  
___________________________________ 

 

"Ms. Manoban?" Jennie jerk awake.

"Hi. Sorry to startle you." A doctor is staring down at her—a blonde in a white lab coat holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a tablet in the other. Jennie sits up and for five seconds, she have absolutely no idea where she is.

"Ms. Manoban, do you know where you are?"

"Severance Hospital."

"That's right. You walked into the ER last night, pretty disoriented. One of my colleagues, Dr. Irene, admitted you, and when she left this morning, she handed your chart over to me. I'm Kim Ye-Rim, you can call me Yeri."

Jennie glances down at the IV in her wrist and trace the line up to the bag hanging over her on a metal stand. "What are you giving me?" she asks.

"Just old-fashioned H2O. You were very dehydrated. How are you feeling now?"

Jennie runs a quick self-diagnostic: Queasy. Head pounding. Inside of her mouth like cotton. She settles her answer with, "Weirdly hungover." 

"I have your MRI results," Dr. Yeri says, waking her tablet. "Your scan came back normal. There was some shallow bruising, but nothing serious. Your tox screen results are far more illuminating. We found traces of alcohol, in line with what you reported to Dr. Irene, but also something else."

"What?"

"Ketamine."

"Not familiar with it."

"It's a surgical anesthetic. One of its side effects is short-term amnesia. Could explain some of your disorientation. It also showed something I've never seen before. A psychoactive compound. Really weird cocktail." She sips her coffee. "I have to ask—you didn't take these drugs yourself?"

"Of course not."

"Last night, you gave Dr. Irene your wife's name and a couple of phone numbers."

"Her cell and our landline."

"I've been trying to track her down all morning, but her mobile number belongs to a guy named Ralph, and your landline just keeps going to voicemail."

"Can you read her number back to me?" Dr. Yeri reads off Lisa's cell-phone number.

"That's right," Jennie says.

"You're sure about that?"

"Hundred percent." As she looks back at the tablet, Jennie asked, "Could these drugs you found in my system cause long-term altered states?"

"You mean delusions? Hallucinations?"

"Exactly."

"To be honest, I don't know what this psycho-chemical is, which means I can't say with any certainty what effect it might have had on your nervous system."

"So it could still be affecting me?"

"Again, I don't know what its half-life is, or how long it takes your body to expel it. But you don't strike me as being under the influence of anything at the moment."

Memories of the night before are regenerating. Jennie saw herself walking naked and at gunpoint into an abandoned building. Pieces of a strange conversation with... herself?

Dr. Yeri pulls a chair over and takes a seat beside Jennie's bed.

"Let's talk about what you said to Dr. Irene. She wrote down..." She sighs. "Apologies, her handwriting is atrocious. 'Patient reports: It was my house but it wasn't my house.' You also said that you got the cuts and bruises on your face because people were chasing you, but when asked why they were chasing you, you couldn't provide an answer." She looks up from the screen. "You're a professor?"

"Correct."

"At..."

"Yonsei University."

"Here's the thing, Jennie. While you were sleeping, and after we couldn't find any trace of your wife—"

"What do you mean you couldn't find any trace of her?"

"Her name is Lisa Manoban, correct?"

"Yes."

"Well we found someone with the same name but when we contacted her, she told us that you two aren't married." 

That levels Jennie. She look away from the doctor, back out the window. At this point, She's not even sure what to be afraid of—this reality that might actually be true, or the possibility that everything is going to pieces inside her head. 

Jennie liked it much better when she thought everything was being caused by a brain tumor. That, at least, was an explanation.

"Jennie, we took the liberty of looking you up. Your name. Profession. Everything we could find. I want you to answer me very carefully. Do you really believe you're a physics professor at Yonsei University?"

"I don't believe it. It's what I am."

"We researched the faculty web pages for science departments in every university and college in Seoul. Including Yonsei. You weren't listed as a professor on any of them."

"That's impossible. I've been teaching there since—"

"Let me finish, because we did find some information about you." She types something on her tablet. "Jennie Kim, born 1996 in Anyang, South Korea. Says here that your mother passed when you were eight. How? If you don't mind my asking."

"She had an underlying heart condition, caught a bad strain of the flu, which turned into pneumonia."

"Sorry to hear that." She continues reading. "Bachelor's degree from Sungkyunkwan University, 2017. PhD from same university. So far so good?"

Jennie nods.

"Awarded the Pavia Prize in 2017, and the same year, Science magazine honored your work with a cover story, calling it the 'breakthrough of the year.' Guest lecturer at Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley." She looks up, meets Jennie's bewildered gaze, and then turns the tablet around so Jennie can see that she's reading from the Wikipedia page of Jennie Kim.

Jennie's sinus rhythm on the heart monitor she's attached to, has become noticeably faster.

Dr. Yeri continues, "You haven't published any new papers or accepted any teaching positions since 2017, when you took on the role of chief science officer with Velocity Laboratories, a jet propulsion lab. It says finally that a missing-persons report was filed on your behalf eight months ago by your friend, and that you haven't been seen publicly in over a year."

This rocks Jennie so deeply that she can barely draw breath.

"I want to help you, Jennie. I can see that you're terrified. I don't know what's happened to you, and I get the feeling you don't know either."

When Jennie didn't say anything, Dr. Yeri tries to ease her mind, "I've called the police. They're sending a detective over to take a statement from you and begin trying to get to the bottom of what happened last night. That's the first thing we're doing."

She glances down at the floor, as if she doesn't want to tell Jennie whatever's coming next.

"Last thing," she says. "We need the guidance of a psychiatrist to get a handle on your condition. I'm having you transferred over to Gwangjin-gu, which is where National Mental Health Center is located"

That alerted Jennie "Look, I admit that I don't have a firm grasp on exactly what's happening, but I'm not crazy. I'd be happy to talk to a psychiatrist. In fact, I'd welcome the opportunity. But I'm not volunteering to be committed, if that's what you're asking."

"It's not what I'm asking. With all due respect, Jennie, you don't have a choice in the matter."

"Excuse me?"

"It's called an M1 hold, and by law, if I think you're a threat to yourself or others, I can order a seventy-two-hour involuntary commitment. Look, this is the best thing for you. You're in no condition—"

"I walked into this hospital under my own steam, because I wanted to find out what was wrong with me."

"And that was the right choice, and that's exactly what we're going to do: find out why you're having this break with reality, and set you up with the treatment you need to make a full recovery."

"So you're going to put me in a rubber room, no belt, no sharp objects, and medicate me into a stupor?" Jennie asked.

"It's not like that. You came into this hospital because you wanted to get better, right? Well, this is the first step. I need you to trust me."

Dr. Yeri rises from the chair and drags it back across the room under the television. "Just keep resting, Jennie. Police will be here soon, and then we'll get you moved over to Gwangjin-gu"

Jennie watches her go.

What if all the pieces of belief and memory that comprise who she is—her profession, her wife - Lisa, —are nothing but a tragic misfiring in that gray matter between her ears? Will she keep fighting to be the woman she thinks she is? Or will she disown it and everything she loves, and step into the skin of the person this world would like for her to be?

And if she have lost her mind, what then?

What if everything she know is wrong?

 _No. Stop._ _I am not losing my mind._ Jennie told herself.

_There were drugs in my blood from last night and bruises on my body. My key opened the door to that house that wasn't mine. I don't have a brain tumor. There's a mark from a wedding band on my ring finger. I am in this hospital room right now, and all of this is actually happening._

_I am not allowed to think I'm crazy._

_I am only allowed to solve this problem._

And so, Jennie left the hospital.


End file.
